Make it Right: Improve Your Product Design Business

If you want consistent and predictable sales income, you need an uninterrupted production schedule. And if you want an uninterrupted production schedule, you need to consistently stock components. There are two parts to ensuring consistent component stock. You must know what your current component inventory is. And you also must know what your future component needs are. The solution to knowing your current inventory is record keeping. The solution to knowing your future component needs is more art than science. But you will do fine because you probably went to art school. The science part involves using basic arithmetic. Just as...

If you are manufacturing your own products, you are going to need an accurate real-time count of your component inventory. Refining the process will reflect your own methods and madness, but the basic principle is good record keeping. First, you should know the quantity that you have ordered. Write it down. Preferably in a format that will be searchable and sortable in the future. If you’re lucky, you will have enough products and component purchase orders that it’s not easy to remember off the top of your head how many of each widget you have on hand. When a truck...

You own a functioning business that keeps you balancing a wide variety of tasks every day. Both large and small, but mostly small. It’s exhilarating to be running a business that requires constant focus and attention. You also love your customers so you want to make sure you get them what they want as soon as possible. So you care immensely about those day to day tasks. But you’re also smart and you’ve got great ideas for how to grow or become more efficient. Maybe you want to add 5 SKUs to your product catalog, or streamline a production process,...